Family Ownership
by CIFan812
Summary: Brief One-shot set about 20 years in the future of the Phoenix Rising 'verse. Dena Winchester didn't ask for much. Not much at all. Rated for Language.


**Family Ownership**

Dena Winchester didn't ask for much. Not much at all. Just that her favorite gun never jam and that the bastards she put down would stay down and that she'd be smart enough, fast enough, good enough to get done what needed doing. No matter what the cost. Right now she stood in a working elevator – almost a novelty in this day and age – taking deep cleansing breaths as she mentally catalogued where all her weapons were on her person. Her father would be impressed with the arsenal that she managed to carry around. She smirked at the thought.

There was a four man guard surrounding her, but she was relaxed. She had no doubt that when the time came she could take care of these clowns easily. They weren't Spartans and it showed in the way they moved, the way they carried their automatics. The way the idiots didn't frisk her after she surrendered her side arms, knives and swords. She made a note to herself to grab one or two of their assault guns for her crew when this was over. The elevator doors opened and they walked down the hall to the door at the end. There was another man guarding it. He grunted and opened it for them to enter.

The room was an office. Opulent even by BDS (Before Darth Sammy) standards. Behind the desk was a middle aged, pudgy, unremarkable man with hair and eyes the color of fresh churned mud.

"Ah. The infamous Dena Winchester. The black sheep, the rebel of the Winchester clan."

She shrugged, an unconscious echo of her father, and sat down opposite him. "I prefer to think of myself as the person who takes care of the things my father can't."

He smiled. "You mean people like me? Traffickers who are protected by his alliances?"

She gave him a smirk. "Traffickers? I prefer slavers or, even better, traitorous pigs, but whatever helps you sleep at night sparky," she drawled. She shifted in the chair, careful to make it look as if she was just trying to get more comfortable. "You've got something I want."

"Ben," he said, his smile broadening though it was definitely colder.

"Ben," she confirmed.

"You know, it was a shock to us when we ran the DNA and realized that he was a Winchester. Didn't seem like something the great Dean Winchester would do… abandon a kid like that."

Dena felt the corner of her eye twitch. Her father had tried to find Ben, even though he'd thought the boy wasn't his. To a man like him, it was the principle of the thing. He would try to save as many nameless faceless innocents as he could, but he knew this kid was out there and he'd tried his level best to find him. In fact, all the people he could remember details about went on a special priority list. But this slimy little bastard didn't need to know that. "He didn't know. Winchesters don't abandon each other."

"His mother sold him to us when he was in his early teens. Fair and square. It's gonna cost you to get him back. I mean, he is a valuable commodity. We already have bids in access of a hundred and fifty gold pieces."

She rolled her eyes at his claim that Ben had been sold by his mother. If she had a gold coin for every time she heard that line, she'd be richer than all of New Spartan Alliance combined. Not that even that would make slaving right if it were always true. Not even a parent had the right to sell a human being. "Huh. The going price used to be thirty pieces of silver. Inflation's a bitch."

That finally got rid of the little parasite's smile. "I'm trying to negotiate here. I'm willing to lose money on this deal, out of respect for your father. But this is still a business. I can't just _give away_ expensive merchandise."

She felt the corner of her eye twitch at her brother being called _merchandise_. "You honestly expect me to _buy_ my own brother from you? He's my family. He already belongs to me. To us."

"Maybe I should be dealing with your father instead." He sat back in his chair with an air of dismissal that made De grind her teeth.

"If I were my father, you'd already be dead." She leaned forward, growling in a way that would probably intimidate a more intelligent man.

"And he'd have a problem on his hands. A very _big_ problem."

"He wouldn't care. That's why I'm here. The minute he catches wind of what you're doing with his son, he'd rain holy hell down on you without a second thought. The Alliance would shatter and I won't let that happen anymore then I will allow you to exploit my brother to line your pockets."

"And you're here to spare me from your father's vengeance? Don't tell me all those stories I've heard about you being unpredictable and violent are just wild exaggerations."

"Actually," she said, already in motion standing and pulling out her hidden guns at the same time, "they're not."

She didn't waste time shooting him. She shot the two guards next to her as she threw herself at the desk. She jumped, turned mid air so that her back was to the desk and shot the two guards behind her just as they were taking aim. She felt the desk beneath her and let her momentum carry her to the other side just as the guard outside was opening the door. She let herself fall. It was the first thing her father'd taught her… how to fall without hurting herself. Well, without hurting herself more than necessary, she amended as she hit the ground hard with a grunt. Her inability to roll with the fall meant that her left hip took all the energy from it. She was definitely going to feel that in the morning.

Just as she suspected, the desk was bullet proof. Of course it was. This oversized, corn-fed sonovabitch was a hider, a _cowerer_, not a fighter. She could hear him drawing whimpering breaths next to her and was tempted to shot him or at least knock him out. She tapped the spot beneath her ear twice where the micro transmitter was implanted before diving to the side of the desk and taking out the last guard, proving that the chair she'd been sitting in definitely wasn't bulletproof in the process. There were explosions in the distance. Her crew had received her message and was working on freeing the slaves, but she doubted that her brother was with the others. He was too valuable. He'd be with all the other cash cows. She stood up and looked down the barrel of her gun at the cringing trafficker.

"You're gonna show me where my brother is, unless you want more demonstrations of how unpredictably violent I can be."

Five minutes later she was looking at a black haired, blue eyed and much younger version of her father standing in a cell, back plastered against far the corner. The collar around his neck glistened in the pale light and made De grit her teeth. She didn't think anything could make her hate slavery more, but seeing another Winchester, her own brother, pissed her off so badly that she had to work to put a lock on it. _Anger can be useful in a fight, babygirl_, her father'd said, _but too much becomes a weakness_.

"Ben. You're coming with me."

He looked up at her, his eyes wide and bright with fear. He flinched at the sound of another explosion. "Are you my new owner?"

She smirked and canted her head in a shrug. "You could say that. I'm your family."


End file.
